


i'm on fire for you, clearly

by epiproctan



Category: Promare (2019)
Genre: Fluff, Getting Together, Light Angst, M/M, Mild Smut, Post-Canon, Self-Reflection, self-harm i guess but not in the usual sense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-02 17:43:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21165590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epiproctan/pseuds/epiproctan
Summary: Lio has felt cold lately, no matter how many sweaters he puts on or blankets he crawls under. It’s somehow different from the encasing ice weaponized against him. It’s somehow different from weathering the frosty glares of the non-Burnish. Being cold from the outside is one thing. But there’s a chill that’s emanating from somewhere inside the marrow of his bones, from the center of his ribcage.But heat radiates from Galo’s body. The beating of his heart is like the crackle of a flame. Right now, pressed completely against him, the cold abates.Lio searches for something that can replace the Promare.





	i'm on fire for you, clearly

**Author's Note:**

> i’ve had this fic done for weeks but why post stuff when you can let it rot in your gdocs instead am i right. big big love to [meeokie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/meeokie/pseuds/meeokie) and [moth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flyingisland/pseuds/flyingisland) for the beta and erin and dani for the moral support
> 
> [title song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWDtqWKrA_g)

**1.**

It starts with a match. 

Lio is certain he hasn’t even laid eyes on one in years because a match is laughable to a man who can engulf entire cities in flame with just an emotion. But the electricity is out as it often is these days and the gas stove won’t light without that spark and of course Galo doesn’t keep matches around the apartment but a neighbor had brought some in a care package as a show of goodwill and—

Here, pinched between his index finger and his thumb, is the dancing light of a flame.

The hard, thick thing that wells up in Lio’s chest at the sight of it isn’t the first indication that something is wrong but rather the culmination of many, many days of shoving it down, shoving it down, shoving it down. Now there’s work to be done and people to help and he’s learned the hard way that having too many feelings is a hinderance better left behind. But the orange light on the end of a stick makes a crack in him that he knows right away is going to be difficult, if not impossible, to seal back up. 

He lets the light burn down, the match curling black as the fire eats through it. It’s the wrong color, the wrong heat, but it’s mesmerizing as it speeds towards his fingers and then  _ fuck _ , it’s too hot and it  _ hurts. _

Lio flings the match into the sink where it gives an emphatic  _ ssssss _ to the puddles of water left on the steel. A single, delicate tendril of ghostly smoke rises barely past the lip of the sink before dissipating into the kitchen air. 

Lio has never burnt himself before in his memory. His fingertips smart, and when he looks at them he can’t immediately see the difference, but the more time he gives it, the more he notices the raw pink coloring the surface of his skin. It stings harder. 

The next match he takes out of the box makes a satisfying noise where he strikes it. This time he doesn’t look at the flame. He’s careful to hold it at a safe distance when he bends it towards the stovetop, and the second the gas catches he tosses it away. The two matches lay blackened and spent in the sink, their awkward angles like broken limbs. 

Lunch turns out crispier than Lio had intended because he gets so distracted watching the flame underneath the pot. It’s blue and it’s hot and it almost reminds him of himself but he knows that if he tried to cup it in his palm he would have more things to worry about than a couple of singed, stinging fingerpads. The crack gets bigger. 

Later, when Galo blusters in, it’s impossible not to hear him from down the hallway, his heavy, boisterous footsteps announcing him long before his call of, “I’m home!” He’s already talking about the appetite he worked up during city cleanup today when he gets to the kitchen, but he cuts himself off the second his eyes zero in on where Lio has his hand cradled to his chest. 

Lio wasn’t even aware he had his hand cradled to his chest. 

Galo’s at his side in two large strides, grabbing his hand gently by the wrist and pulling it towards his face. 

“Jeez, did you hurt yourself?” he asks, squinting at the tips of Lio’s finger and thumb, which have now turned an angry red. “You have to be more careful, Lio!”

“You should talk,” Lio says, all surface petulance. But he’s intimately familiar with Galo’s wounds and injuries, when they happen, and he means it. 

Galo’s hands on either side of Lio’s are warm in a different way than the match’s flame. They make Lio want to chase after them when Galo turns away in the direction of the medicine cabinet, shaking his head midway through a gently scolding tirade that sounds more like nonsense than real, coherent sentences. When he comes back it’s armed with ointment and more bandaids than could probably fit on Lio’s entire hand. 

This level of care doesn’t seem warranted for a couple of singed fingertips, but Lio doesn’t say anything as Galo’s thick but adept fingers navigate their way between his own slender ones with the lotion. He narrates what he’s doing as he does it, almost absentmindedly, half to Lio and half to himself, and the familiar cadence of Galo’s voice almost drives the matter of the match completely from his mind. But it doesn’t.

Galo, when finished, caps the ointment and gathers the unused bandaids back in his hands. He begins to turn, but before he can walk away, Lio slips back into his personal space. As usual, Galo has lost his shirt somewhere over the course of the day, so when Lio presses himself up against the solid mass of his body, his hands and face meet bare skin. 

Lio has felt cold lately, no matter how many sweaters he puts on or blankets he crawls under. It’s somehow different from the encasing ice weaponized against him. It’s somehow different from weathering the frosty glares of the non-Burnish. Being cold from the outside is one thing. But there’s a chill that’s emanating from somewhere inside the marrow of his bones, from the center of his ribcage.

But heat radiates from Galo’s body. The beating of his heart is like the crackle of a flame. Right now, pressed completely against him, the cold abates. 

Galo makes a soft sound in the back of his throat and lifts his arms so that they’re secure around Lio’s torso, and it wards off the chill in a less painful way than the sting of the match’s flame on his hand. 

Lio closes his eyes. Counts to four as he breathes in, and four as he breathes out. Soaks in the warm, smokey notes of Galo’s scent. Then he clears his throat and pushes away. 

Galo is smiling at him. 

“Feeling better?” 

“I’m fine,” is Lio’s reply, which isn’t an answer to the question. 

**2.**

Lio was never a smoker, never felt the need to do anything but heed warnings of lung cancer and keep his airways free of the cloying scent of tobacco, but now whenever Meis offers him a cigarette, he takes it. He’s not the only one drawn to the click of the lighter. Gueira keeps one in each pocket. 

“Boss,” Meis says after a few moments of silence broken only by the shuffling of feet on the concrete. They’re hiding outside the boundaries of today’s cleanup efforts, the three of them leaned against the burned-out shell of a building that Lio wishes he didn’t feel a soul-deep connection to on sight. “Everything okay?”

There isn’t a good answer to that, not one he can say aloud or one that Meis and Gueira want to hear. His trust in them is infinite. He knows he can rely on them for emotional support, and he has in the past. There’s surely a shared emotion in this experience that they might be able to lend a healthier slant to, but Lio doesn’t know if he wants to bring voice to these feelings just yet.

“I burned myself,” he says casually. 

They both straighten up; “You okay?” Gueira asks, while Meis leans close as if to see. Lio tugs off his glove and offers his hand up for inspection. He’d taken the bandaids off this morning and learned that the skin beneath now shines a dark purple-brown. It stings when he touches anything, including the inside of his gloves, but keeping covered is better than reminding those around him that he’s only human. 

Even though, for a long time, that was all he wanted.

“Huh,” Gueira says, taking his hand and examining the fingers, Meis over his shoulder like a shadow. “What’s it feel like?”

“It’s hot.”

Gueira relinquishes his hand, expression thoughtful. When Lio pulls his glove back on, the fabric drags over the raw skin. He takes a long drag of his cigarette and keeps his gaze forward as Gueira and Meis settle back into place against the soot-stained brick.

It’s the unmistakable click of a lighter that draws his attention back to them. Their cigarettes are lit so there’s no reason for it except the quickening of his pulse in the veins under the thin skin of his wrist when he sees the bright spark and the tiny flare. It must be the same for the others, he thinks, turning instinctively towards the light, until he sees Gueira slowly drawing the flame first to eye level, and then into contact with the tough, dirtied skin of his opposite hand. 

“ _ Yeeoch _ !” Gueira howls, but he’s half-grinning, holding the lighter still against himself. “That  _ hurts _ !”

“Gueira!” Lio says, shoving at him. The lighter clatters to the ground. “Don’t do that.”

Gueira laughs, holding his hand out towards Lio, red blooming along where the fire touched him. Lio is so focused on it that he barely notices Meis kneeling to collect the fallen lighter until he’s also lighting it and letting out a sharp curse when he turns it against himself. 

“It  _ is _ hot,” Meis says, letting the lighter flicker out. He sounds a little wondering. It doesn’t come as a surprise to Lio, who couldn’t really understand what  _ hot _ meant in this context until a short time ago. It shouldn’t bother him that others are expanding their vocabularies too. 

Meis and Gueira thrust their hands out to each other, chuckling as they compare the way their skin changes color under the heat, marvel about the itchy burning that seems to crawl somewhere between the muscle and the epidermis. It’s an experience they’ve never had before, and Lio can understand the desire to make it positive, to make it about discovery, than to focus on the intense, gut-deep loss it drags in its wake. 

“We’ll match, Boss,” Meis says, grinning. 

“Yeah!” Gueira laughs. “You can take the fire out of Mad Burnish, but you can’t take Mad Burnish out of the fire!”

Despite himself, Lio snorts. 

But then he thinks of Galo, with his ointment and bandages, and realizes with a pang of empathetic pain that his first aid kit is with his bike on the other side of the neighborhood and he has nothing to offer Meis and Gueira except his camaraderie. They’re going to be feeling the sting of that tonight, he knows from experience, and for days from now. Maybe when they understand the ever-present ache of a healing burn, they’ll regret having done it. 

Later, when Lio joins Galo for ham and cheese sandwiches on the back bumper of the Rescuemobile, Galo takes a series of short, noisy inhales through his nose. 

“You’ve been smoking,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest. “I hope you threw it away right. Before the Great World Blaze, cigarette fires were the number one—”

“I did,” Lio says. He doesn’t particularly like the taste of it on his breath either, but sometimes he feels like he has no choice. 

He wants to ask Galo to make sure Meis and Gueira’s hands are okay, in the same way he did with Lio, but for just a moment longer Lio sits and listens to him loudly stuff two sandwiches into his mouth, swinging his legs over the cracked asphalt. There are dark streaks scorched into the pavement just like there’s a burn in his hand and angry red scars stretched up and down the length of Galo’s arm. He’s taken to wearing his sleeve less, and today the discolored skin is shiny under the sun. 

He must finish one of the sandwiches, because a huge gloved hand comes down solid on Lio’s opposite shoulder. He drags Lio closer until he’s flush against his side, skin damp with sweat from the physical exertion of the day and glowing with heat. 

“Eat your food,” he says. “Gotta keep your strength up!”

Lio hums his agreement absently, but brings his sandwich to his mouth and takes a bite. He’s grateful that it doesn’t taste like ash. 

**3.**

“They’re called fireworks!” Galo explains triumphantly. “They go  _ BOOM _ .”

Lio thinks of other things Galo has described as such and gets a little nervous, but he knows he’s capable of handling himself. He doesn’t know what this has to do with the plastic bag full of cardboard cylinders Galo has plopped on the ground, or why they drove forty-five minutes out of the city on the back of Galo’s bike to the middle of open wasteland for this. 

“They were banned after the Great World Blaze,” Galo says. “They explode when they’re set on fire. Way too dangerous.”

Toeing at the bag on the ground, Lio tries to get a better look. “Are they weapons?” 

“No no no! They’re art. For fun!”

Not quite following, Lio turns his eyes up to Galo. He’s waiting with an eager grin that makes something strange happen to the breath between Lio’s lungs and his lips. 

“Okay,” Lio says. “Show me.”

Watching Galo fumble with the lighter, Lio imagines a time when barely a flick of his wrist would’ve done the trick, when a single thought could have saved Galo the trouble of bending at the waist, but then the fuse is lit and Galo’s backing away and he’s smiling over his shoulder at Lio as he does because this is the  _ ta-da _ moment where it becomes clear why he’s dragged Lio all this way. 

There’s a thundering  _ POP _ . Light bursts from the end of the cylinder and rips up into the sky, harsh against the inky darkness. At its zenith it bursts into a colorful spray of sparks. 

It’s no Burnish fire, but it is beautiful. Part of Lio doesn’t want to look, doesn’t want to see it, but the light, in different colors, different shapes of different bursts, draws his eye again and again. After having been part of the flame for so long, rekindling a fascination with the beauty of it seems both silly and like the most natural thing in the world. He drinks in every flare and spark and shower of light. 

Because Galo’s been blessed with the kind of height that Lio can only obtain on stepladders, when Lio turns to look at him, his neck is craned to the same angle as it was to watch the exploding flares. Their eyes meet, because Galo’s not looking up at the sky. He never has been, Lio guesses. He’s been looking at Lio, this entire time. 

A frosty  _ what are you looking at _ is on the tip of Lio’s tongue, but it melts in his mouth when the corners of Galo’s lips tick up even farther at the eye contact. What he says instead is accidental, the product of his heart reacting to the clear blue of Galo’s eyes, the need to create words where the ones he had planned have fallen away. 

“If I’m not Burnish, I don’t know who I am.”

Galo doesn’t miss a beat. He presses the lighter to the palm of Lio’s hand and gives a nod towards the next firework lined up on the ground. 

“I’ve told you already,” Galo says. “My burning soul will burn enough for the both of us!”

And with just that, Lio goes stumbling off in the direction of the cardboard cylinders. He lights one, two, three, and then scurries back to Galo’s side as they begin to crackle behind him. His face feels warm like he’d held the lighter to it instead of to the fuses, and when he reaches Galo and turns around to see the bright colors bursting before him, he nudges wordlessly into his space. 

There’s none of the theatrics that Lio half-expected. Just a pair of solid arms sliding around him. They wrap over his shoulders and meet across his chest, and pull him in close until his spine is lined up against Galo’s sternum. His jawline comes to rest against Lio’s temple, and everywhere they touch, Lio feels his heat.

Sparks fly. Flames launch into the air. And somehow, all Lio can think is that the way the fireworks look is the way that the inside of his chest feels with Galo’s arms wrapped around him. 

**4.**

A bonfire seems superfluous, Lio thinks. Surely, everyone has had enough of fire for the rest of their lives, but the reports of traditional arson have been on the rise despite the very noted absence of the whispers of the Promare. It seems easier to sate people’s need for flames in a controlled environment than to address the psychological damage done on such a huge portion of the population. 

It takes place on the crumbling, ruined wreckage of the Parnassus, at the foot of what was once Kray Foresight’s tower. His statue has notably been covered by the largest tarp available, but Lio knows that beneath it his likeness has been decapitated and vandalized to unrecognizability. Lio isn’t above admitting that he helped take a sledgehammer to the remains of it himself. 

The event is nominally sanctioned and supervised by the Promepolis Burning Rescue Company #3, but in reality it’s a chance for its members to unwind and relax too. To spend an evening alongside the very Burnish they’d risked their lives to help save that night, to connect with them and make them feel welcomed again. 

When Lio looks around, something in his chest shifts. Children he recognizes from the settlement play tag along the far side of the gathering, adults’ eyes watchful on them to make sure they don’t stray too close to the flame now that they can sustain burns. Meis has one hand wrapped around the neck of a beer bottle as he nods along to something Ignis is telling him, and on the other side of the fire, Gueira is doubled over laughing between Lucia and Varys. Everyone looks healthy. Well-rested. Safe. Not all of them have homes yet, or jobs, or spots in the society that spurned them, but they’re here, and they’re alive. 

Despite this, Lio feels cold. 

Something broad and strong claps him on the back, and if Lio’s core wasn’t nearly constantly engaged, he thinks he might’ve gone sprawling. He spins to face the attack but realizes as the weight and warmth of it stays on the center of his back that it wasn’t an attack at all. 

“Look at it burn!” Galo says, mouth stretched wide into a smile. “Who would’ve thought that I’d ever go to a fire for fun?”

It’s not the first time Lio’s seen Galo illuminated by firelight, but something about it now pierces deep into his chest. The shifting light plays with his features, softening his hard jaw and throwing shadows from his eyelashes, and Lio’s eyes feel immoveable. He can’t break away. 

“Don’t you wanna get closer?” Galo says, nudging him with the hand that’s still splayed over his back. “Come on!”

But Lio doesn’t. And he doesn’t entirely know how to tell Galo that he isn’t sure if he’ll ever truly defeat the urge to thrust his hand into it. If he’ll stop ever going to do so subconsciously before yanking himself back at the first kiss of heat, realizing that it’s not his anymore. Maybe someday he’ll no longer wonder if today is different from yesterday, if somehow overnight he regained the ability for his skin to knit itself back together after being scorched from his body. 

Every flame he sees for the rest of his life is going to give him parallel feelings of longing and comfort, and at some point he will have to get used to that. And he doesn’t quite understand how to put that to words. 

“You go,” is what he says. 

Galo’s fingers on his back curl a little, and then relax. He doesn’t stop smiling, but his eyes are less fervent than usual when he looks down at Lio. 

“Let’s take a walk, then,” he says. 

Together, they scale the piles of rubble surrounding the open space. The reconstruction efforts have been closing in on this area, but what was once a blocky array of pristine, perfectly-squared skyscrapers now rests in chaotic ruin. Part of him feels smug that his once-Burnish feet are trodding carelessly over the rotten fruit of Kray Foresight’s labor. But mostly he’s focused on picking his way over rent steel beams and ruptured concrete. 

Galo’s hand finds his at some point. Lio isn’t sure when it happened—he was steadying himself after a stumble, he was helping Lio over a fissure in the cement—but now it’s there and it’s solid and it engulfs his own hand completely and it’s something for Lio to focus on as they climb up, up, up, until the bonfire and its merry audience is beneath them. 

They find a perch on an exposed girder and sit, thighs pressed together, their feet dangling over the edge. They’re not so high that they can’t hear the joyous squealing of the children, the outbursts of laughter from the tipsy adults, the cracks of logs splitting under the flames, but the individual threads of conversation are lost. Lio can’t feel the heat of the fire from here. 

The view of the demolished city from this angle is familiar. Lio hasn’t forgotten. Lio hasn’t forgotten anything about that night, but least of all the way that he’d rampaged through the buildings, and how Galo had soared in, heedless of his own safety. Not to save Kray, but to save Lio from himself. 

“Something on your mind?” Galo asks. 

A gentle breeze pulls at the ends of Lio’s hair. The smoke from the fire below changes directions, blowing towards the river rather than the mountains. Lio watches it rise into the air. 

“It’s not something you would understand.” 

He doesn’t say it unkindly. Just matter-of-factly. It’s the truth.

Galo lets out a huff of a drawn-out sigh. 

“I might be an idiot,” Galo says, “but I know that it hurts to lose things.”

Below them, someone, maybe Gueira, laughs raucously. Galo shifts his arm closer, and Lio feels the line of it against his back. 

“My parents died in the fire Kray started, you know,” Galo says. 

It rolls from his lips nonchalantly, and when Lio turns to stare at him, his face is in its typical pleasant-neutral expression. Lio has heard him cry about this. Lio has had to wake him up from nightmares where he’s drenched in sweat, calling out for help, warning  _ fire, fire, fire _ , but they’ve never talked about it. He wouldn’t have expected anyone else to be so open about it, or at least so superficially unbothered, but this is Galo. 

“It didn’t hit me until after everything,” he says, “but he set my house on fire! And then pretended that he saved me! What a bastard.”

Lio almost laughs. The name-calling seems underwhelming after everything that happened, but he can understand that sometimes it helps to take the petty shots. 

“So maybe I don’t know what it’s been like for you.” Galo raises his left hand over his lap, palm-up, stares at it, closes it down to a fist. As though he could be feeling the ghost of a flame there too. “But I can listen.”

He’s so earnest that it tears at Lio’s lungs when he breathes. He’s so genuine that it makes Lio want things. Things like his comfort and his happiness. Things like being understood by him. It comes as a surprise in the same way that so many other things about Galo do. 

But Lio is adaptable. He sinks his fingers into the feeling and lets it take him away.

“I know the Promare were destructive,” he starts. “They weren’t trying to be. But they were. Just like the Burnish—just like us.

“I dreamt of building a city for us. Where we Burnish could live in peace. No one would get hurt, because the flames would protect us, but we could burn all we wanted. I thought that was the future. I never thought I would live in a world where there  _ were _ no Burnish.”

Galo pauses for a beat, and then points down to the fire below. 

“Aren’t those your Burnish, Lio?” He opens his hand and gestures broadly. “And here’s your city!”

He turns his grin on Lio, and it’s completely disarming in a way that Lio doesn’t know how to deal with.

“You did it.” He stops to think. “Well,  _ we _ did it. I saved you, after all. Nothing can stand in the way of Galo de Lion.” 

Lio is helpless to the breath of laughter that pushes its way out of his lungs. 

“You’re an idiot,” he says, because it’s the only way he’s learned how to express the pleasant helplessness he feels when confronted by the entity that is Galo Thymos.

“I am!” Galo agrees happily, seemingly somehow able to read into Lio’s intentions, despite how carefully he tries to keep them tucked against his chest. “I’m an idiot, and I still know you were always more than just a Burnish. You said you don’t know who you are, but do you think that’s all there was to Lio Fotia? Being Burnish? 

“Nothing’s changed, really. You’re exactly the same.”

He grins, a little lopsided. 

“You just can’t start dangerous fires anymore.”

It’s weird that for such an absolute moron, Galo always knows the right thing to say to make the lack of  _ hotter, hotter, hotter _ in Lio’s head bearable. The voices inside have gone silent, only to be replaced by one beside him. Galo is noisy. He talks too much and too loud. But Lio has to wonder if that’s exactly what he needs.

“That’s the problem,” Lio says, but he doesn’t mean it. It comes out good-natured, maybe more than he wants it to. 

“It is less exciting, only putting out normal fires,” Galo replies. 

“It was never about excitement.”

“I  _ know _ . It’s about saving people. And having the coolest robot.”

Lio rolls his eyes, but the smile he’s been fighting pushes harder. 

“You’re gonna be okay. Anyway, I’m here now, too,” Galo says. “Whatever you need, I’ve got your back! Leave it to me!”

They’re the words of an idiot. Lio knows that. It doesn’t stop him from letting them blanket him in comfort.

Their faces are too close, so Lio moves them closer. He draws in until their foreheads are pressed together, Galo’s eyes and nose and smile going blurry with proximity. Here, he breathes, in, out, and Galo does too, his exhales skirting across Lio’s face. Heat radiates from his body at all the places they’re in contact: their faces, their shoulders, their hips, their thighs. It’s warm here, not just on the surface of his skin but somewhere inside of him. He’s brimming with embers and the decision is in his hands to fan them to a roaring flame or to let them smolder until they die.

Lio doesn’t know yet if he can handle holding this fire inside of him again so soon. Not when he doesn’t have his nigh-invincible armor anymore. Not when he can’t cover up his too-soft body with hard Burnish metal or reach into the air to form a sword to protect himself or summon a bike from nothing to ride away on. 

Lio places a gentle hand against Galo’s collarbone and gives the tiniest push. 

Night air rushes in to fill the space that yawns open between them, and Lio keeps his eyes downturned to avoid witnessing the confusion and hurt that might be playing across Galo’s face. He lets his hand linger, allows it to trail down from the ridge of a collarbone to the swell of a pectoral, to send the message that this isn’t a flat-out rejection. It could be a postponement, if the strange anxiety suddenly clogging his throat decides to abate.

“I’m going away for a few days,” Lio says, and waits a beat before pulling together the strength to lift his eyes. 

But Galo looks at him with nothing but understanding and gives a resolute nod. 

“Come home soon,” he says. 

**5.**

Lio spends three nights sleeping between Meis and Gueira in their bed. They have a shiny, modern apartment in one of the new buildings that just went up around the city center, and it’s far more luxurious than any place they’ve ever lived before, especially in the past several years. Interminable friendship aside, Lio doesn’t feel bad making himself at home here, because he knows it’s only their connection to  _ the _ Lio Fotia who sealed the Promare away and rid the world of the Burnish threat that snagged this for them in the first place. 

He doesn’t go to the firehouse. He rides out into the mountains by himself. He hikes up a now-dormant volcano. He helps coordinate Burnish housing projects from a tent set up where downtown once stood. Aina and Ignis both message him to check in on him in their two wildly differing tones, and Lio reassures them both that he’s not skipping out on cleanup duties.

_ You’d better not be _ , Aina replies. And then,  _ Just worried about you is all. _

It’s unhelpful in the losing battle that Lio has waged. But the more time he spends away, the more he thinks he had no intention of winning in the first place.

It comes out around 2 AM on the third night. 

“Don’t you miss being Burnish?”

The lights are off and they should all be sleeping but none of them are, and Lio knows it, even when neither Gueira nor Meis answer him right away. The dim glow of the moon and a recovering city throw long shadows over the room. 

“Yeah,” says Meis eventually.

“Yeah,” says Gueira, sounding defeated. 

They’re the answers that Lio was expecting, but not the ones that make him happy. If it was up to him, he would be the only one tussling with this problem. He would lift the burden of it from all their shoulders if he could. 

But the deeper, hidden part of him appreciates the shared hardship. That was what united the Burnish in the first place, after all. 

“It’s good,” Meis says. “This is a good thing. No more Burnish.”

Objectively, he’s right. Anyone can recognize that. But logic and emotion don’t always fit together where they meet. 

“We can sleep in a bed now,” Gueira says. “And eat good food. And we don’t gotta worry about Freeze Force coming after our asses.”

Lio can hear the  _ but _ at the end of his sentence, though.  _ But _ I’m cold.  _ But _ I’m powerless.  _ But _ the inside of my head is too quiet.  _ But _ there’s a place inside of me that was once filled with fire that’s now devoid of anything. 

“It’s gonna be an adjustment, though,” Meis says. 

Right. It’s unreasonable to think that anyone could get up the morning after something like this and be okay. Or even weeks later. Months later. Lio knows that it’ll take time, just like everything else going on right now. There’s only so much city rubble a group of people can clear in a single day. There’s only so many resources one can locate, bricks one can lay, people one can help. In the same way, there’s only so much processing one can do, only so much acclimating. There will be time for this. But still— 

“I miss Miami,” Gueira says. 

“And Mad Burnish,” Meis says. 

Lio frowns. 

“We’re still Mad Burnish.”

Quiet descends. It’s dark, but Lio can feel Gueira and Meis tilt their heads towards him, watching, waiting. 

“We don’t need the Promare to be Mad Burnish,” Lio says. 

There’s another moment of silence, and then Meis reaches up to ruffle his hair indulgently. Lio shakes him off. 

“What’s going to replace the Promare?” Lio asks.

There’s a silence that he knows would be filled with exchanged loaded looks if he weren’t blocking their view of each other. 

“Maybe you need a hobby, Boss,” Meis says. 

“Maybe you need to get laid—ouch! Hey, what was that for?”

“What Galo and I do is none of your business,” Lio says, slow to remove his elbow from the soft spot under Gueira’s ribcage. 

But both Meis and Gueira erupt into rampant snickering. 

“Nobody said anything about Galo,” Meis says. 

Lio rolls face down into the pillow and sighs. They’ve gotten too uppity since losing the constant reminder of why they chose to follow Lio in the first place. 

“He’s good for you, Boss,” Gueira says, once the laughter has calmed. 

“I’ll never forget how he saved your life,” Meis replies. “Right there, in front of everyone.”

A low chuckle threatens to overtake them again, but they grow quiet and sober in the memories of that night that follow along with that statement. They lose themselves in it, or at least Lio does, for a stretch of time long enough that he begins to wonder if the other two have fallen asleep, leaving him alone to face the dark. 

But then Meis rolls over, and Gueira hums thoughtfully. Lio realizes that he was silly to imagine that either of them would leave him alone in any capacity. 

“Boss, I think if there’s something that makes you feel that warm and powerful,” Gueira says, “then that’s it for sure. Something that can replace the Promare.”

**6.**

Galo’s apartment usually smells like Galo, but today it doesn’t really. 

“I’m home,” Lio announces, removing his shoes and setting down his duffle bag by the door. 

There’s an excited shuffle from down the hall, like a retriever rising to meet its owner at the door, and an, “ _ Oh _ .” Galo’s head pops out of his bedroom door, curious, eyes wide. 

“Welcome home!” he calls, and pads out in nothing but slippers and a pair of sweatpants riding low on his hips, scarred arm bared. Lio lets his gaze linger on it before forcing himself to look away, to step out of the doorway and into the apartment, searching for changes since he was last here three days ago.

There’s just one, he finds. A small pink candle sits on the end table. It’s lit. It explains the oversweet scent in the air. The tiny flame jumps and ebbs, reflected in the perfect circle of melted wax at the base of the wick. The label says something in gilt gold letters that Lio can’t be bothered to read, absorbed by the miniscule amount of heat and light that it puts out. 

“Look, I got you this,” Galo says, coming to stand at his side. “It reminded me of you. The landlord said no candles allowed in the apartment but I’m the world’s number one firefighter, so I can definitely handle—”

Lio has kissed Galo once already, but he was dead, so the memory is black-spotted and fuzzy. This one, he tells himself, will more than make up for it.

And it does. From the first brush of lips, power surges through Lio’s body like fire licking down his spine. He has Galo’s chin clutched in one hand and a fistful of his hair in the other, hauled down to meet him, held still as Lio pours himself against him. 

Again, he feels resurrected. Maybe Galo’s mouth will always do that to him. 

Galo makes a choked sound, and Lio lets go of him only long enough to let him readjust himself before tearing in again. This time Galo seems more prepared, leaning into the kiss. Lio hadn’t realized he was on his toes until Galo scoops an arm around him to support his weight. He allows Galo to draw him in, to pull their bodies together until there’s nothing between them but heat and the thin fabric of Lio’s shirt. 

Retreating for a gulp of air, Galo glares down at him. 

“Hey!” he says, breathing hard, pink up to the ears. “Don’t do that out of nowhere!” 

Lio makes a sound of acknowledgement, but not of acquiescence, before rising up to meet him again. 

Galo’s body is solid and encompassing. Being pressed to him is like being pressed to a brick wall but that brick wall is also padded and warm and wraps around you like a blanket and kisses you breathless. His forearm that’s pressed to the small of Lio’s back is solid as a tree trunk and his hand that’s on Lio’s hip is large enough to envelop the entire jut of bone there. 

He’s cautious at first, testing, waiting, but Lio opens his mouth and then there’s tongues and nipping and small, satisfied noises. Lio lets himself roam. Feels out the ridge of Galo’s spine, allows his fingers to explore the rise and fall and hard and soft edges of his back muscles. His skin is smooth and hot. His mouth is maddening. It makes steam rise under his skin, bringing heat to his own face and chest and everywhere his blood is pounding in his veins.

Galo’s no different. Pressed this close, Lio can feel him the instant his body starts to respond to him. It doesn’t take long, not like this, not the way they’re ravenous and needy. Galo shifts as if to move away, maybe out of embarrassment, but Lio follows him, slotting himself between his legs, pressing the signs of his own desire to him. 

The sound that Galo makes into Lio’s mouth is both surprised and eager. It makes Lio want to shove him up against the wall, wrestle him to the floor, take care of him and kiss him hard until he makes it again. But there’s a perfectly useable bed here, and all need and intensity, Lio begins to steer Galo towards it. 

“Hold on,” Galo says, grabbing one of Lio’s hands and effectively dwarfing it entirely. 

He pulls them both up short and leans towards the candle. He blows it out. The flame disappears into a tendril of smoke, and Lio takes a lungful of the lovely, acrid scent of it before Galo tugs him along. 

They land on the mattress in a tussle of limbs, yanking at clothes, and Galo laughs, and then growls, and laughs again, and Lio’s stomach flips and his heart beats faster. He can’t decide what to do first, if it’s more important to get his mouth on Galo again or to get his hands under his pants or to rid him of the pants entirely and he ends up doing some combination of all three, teeth in Galo’s shoulder as his fingers first brush against him, already hard and ready. 

His own clothes have to go, a process that Galo’s large hands are eager to help with. He brushes over a nipple as he pulls Lio’s shirt off and Lio clamps his teeth down on a sound he didn’t even know he was capable of making. 

Then they’re all skin on skin on skin, and Lio pulls them together as much as he can just to feel the way every nerve ending is aflame, like Galo is a million matches, like Lio is a million candles, like they’re lighters and fireworks and bonfires. He rolls them both over, unable to bear it, backs away until he’s astride Galo’s thighs, pushes them apart and makes a home for himself there. 

Galo is vocal about what he wants, what he likes, how flustered he feels, what Lio is doing and how good it is. Lio’s face is burning but so is everything else, and everywhere he touches Galo, every time he looks at him, he just wants more. He feels impossibly greedy, a little bit out of control of himself, but opening Galo up, watching his face and hearing his voice as he does, has made him wild. 

“Come  _ on _ , Lio—” Galo calls, begs, whines, and Lio isn’t in the mood to argue with him. 

The first press has them both breathing hard through grit teeth, clinging to each other with bruising fingers. Lio feels seared all the way up to his scalp, submerged in magma, as he pushes all the way in. 

He pauses only to catch his breath and to listen to Galo beg. Then he moves. It’s hot  _ hot hot hot hot _ and Galo is  _ burning _ , burning from the inside and setting Lio on fire everywhere they touch. There’s a dampness gathering at Lio’s hairline. His motions dislodge a single bead of sweat, sending it rolling down the back of his neck. 

An insistent mantra of  _ burn burn burn _ echoes in his skull and it’s familiar and new all at once, a variation on a well-known tune, and Lio loses himself in it. He feels aflame, destructive and powerful in every way he’s ever felt when building armor around himself or riding in the eye of a dragon, but the only emotions driving this are affection, relief, and a pleasant desperation that tingles in his toes and fingers. 

“It’s hot,” pants Galo, his fingers threaded through Lio’s. 

“ _ Good _ ,” Lio says, and wraps his hand around him and strokes him in time so that his thighs are quaking and he’s gripping the sheets. 

He’s loud when it hits, tightening down around Lio, and Lio’s barely done working him through it before he’s teetering, then tumbling, himself. And when Lio collapses against Galo’s chest, wrung out and sated and boneless, his nerves and muscles could be made of flame. He can’t remember any surge of power from the Promare having felt this good. Maybe it never did. 

He allows Galo to rearrange them, to mop up the mess between them with a discarded shirt from the foot of the bed. Lio luxuriates under his touch, under his words that vacillate from praise to flustered nonsense in the same breath. He barely takes in anything that’s said, choosing instead to angle his face in his direction wherever he goes like Galo is Lio’s personal sun. 

When Galo settles down beside him, their bodies curled against each other, Lio reaches out with his fire-scarred hand to touch him. 

“Feeling better?” Galo asks, lips brushing against Lio’s forehead as he speaks. 

Lio’s palm, flat over the  _ th-thud-th-thud-th-thud _ of Galo’s heart, presses down harder. 

“Yes,” he whispers. 

The Promare are gone. He knows that. And he has to get used to that. 

But with his chest this warm, lit by a burning soul, he might not need them anymore. 

**Author's Note:**

> come hang out with me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/epiproctan) where i cry a lot about lio fotia at 3 am every day
> 
> i've got like 2 more promare fics done so if you didn't hate this you're in luck


End file.
